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Spurs 5-0 Burnley: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Sonny’s Wonder Goal

Only one place to start. Bless him, Sonny appeared to misread the invitation, and rather than going through the motions in dirge-like fashion as would befit a cold and wet December afternoon, he trotted out the sort of once-in-a-lifetime fare that one normally reserves for when the Queen oozes into town.

I suspect that even now, 24 hours later, some of the patrons are still on their feet applauding, because that was a goal the like of which is now only ever seen in the playground or on the computer box. Put bluntly, nobody dribbles past the entire team any more. It was a relic of a bygone era, and a pretty glorious one at that.

For all the tittle-tattle about Jose, new tactics, ballboys, and so on and so forth, there was something most gratifying about seeing a mist descend upon a player, and then seeing said player give a shrug as if to say “To heck with all this, I’m going to run the entire length of the pitch and take on literally every player in the opposing team before scoring”.

2. The Front Four

It seems over-generous to tip the hat in Dele’s direction, for the decoy run that created a yard of space for Son to set off on his gallop, because it would not have mattered if there were no team-mates on the pitch at all – Son would still have taken on anyone Burnley threw at him.

Nevertheless, Dele did head off in a westerly direction as Son headed north, and it struck me as a pleasing aspect of Jose’s Tottenham that enthusiastic backing from the supporting cast of forwards is very much a feature of our attacking play now.

Dele has attracted the recent headlines, Kane tends to score whatever the circumstances and Son will never stop buzzing around – but it is the fact that when the ball breaks this lot spring into action as a quartet (featuring Lucas or Sissoko, as appropriate, as the fourth musketeer) that catches the eye.

Watching all four of them hare off as one towards goal reminds me of those nature programmes in which a veritable gaggle of fish take it upon themselves to switch direction en masse, almost as if they’ve been rehearsing the move for weeks. Flocks of birds dabble in this practice too, I’ve noticed over the course of my thirty-eight summers. And now, on the signal of a ball blooted towards the opposition goal, our front four of Kane, Dele, Son and Lucas/Sissoko have taken this particular gag, first demonstrated in nature, and neatly perfected it while wearing football boots and Nike clobber.

It’s a heck of a party piece, providing numerous moving parts upon which the opposition defence need to keep tabs. As it happened, of our five goals, the one with the least to recommend it in the aesthetics department was the one which owed most to the all four members of the quartet. Lucas’ goal came about as a result of Sonny’s dribble, Kane’s decoy run and Dele snuffling for scraps. Had but one of them lost interest halfway through the routine, and ambled along towards the area at half-pace, the goal would not have been forced. Which just goes to show.

3. Kane – An Unlikely Undercard

The problem with the metronomic, robotic efficiency of Harry Kane is that after a while it is tempting to take the young stub for granted. One is inclined to mooch around noting that the sun has risen, a selection of leaves have fallen and Harry Kane has notched another goal. Human nature I suppose, and I am as guilty of this as the best of them.

So, easy though it is to lose sight of his input during a five-goal rout that featured arguably the goal of the season, one probably ought to scribble a note to remind oneself that Kane scored two – and not just that but his opener was all his own work and set a tone that was very necessary.

Had he not scored so early, one can never be quite sure how things might have panned out, but on the back of a mightily underwhelming midweek performance, a fast start was dashed handy stuff.

Nor was that opener a tap-in either, or the result of a finely-crafted team move. When he collected the ball the opposition goalkeeper may have began preparing his game-face, but one would be hard pressed to suggest that there was any imminent danger. And yet Kane demonstrated, not for the first time, that he does not really care for such niceties and social norms. Few others would think to leather a shot from that range, but that’s part of the quality of the chap.

That goal out of nothing set the tone, and within five minutes the game was as good as done.

And that is before mentioning the absolutely exquisite pass he played a moment later, inside the Burnley full-back and into the path of Aurier. It is likely to be forgotten as the dust settles and other highlights are re-watched, but during the entire game that pass was bettered only by Son’s goal. (The perfectly-weighted return pass for Sissoko’s goal was another masterpiece – and yet only the fourth best thing Kane did yesterday.)

4. Toby’s Long Passes

A feature of the Jose reign has been the welcome return, like some long-lost lover, of the sight of Toby Alderweireld pinging fifty-yard passes slap bang into the path of one of the attacking mob.

Quite why this feature disappeared from our play is an oddity, having been such a tool in the armoury for a couple of years, but disappear it did, as part of the general implosion of the final year or so of Poch’s reign.

However, it is back now in glorious technicolour, and wheeled out at least a couple of times each game – and why not? Not only does Toby have the happy knack of sticking a pass onto a postage stamp from absolute miles out, but the whole routine is a pretty nifty way of keeping opponents on their toes, varying the type of attack and making for a pleasant change from the short-pass routine.

It won’t always work, I suppose, but when dusted down and wheeled out yesterday all the pipes appeared in rude health, and we can expect it to continue to be a feature.

A rare clean sheet, an improved Dier shielding performance and some enthusiastic flaps from the younglings all helped to round off a pretty satisfactory afternoon. It’s the sort of thing we should be doing regularly at home against the middling lot – but it was a habit that became neglected under Poch, so this sort of result helps no end to shove us towards the Top Four.

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